A New Era of Interoperability is Coming
Emblem Vault boasts a legacy that dates all the way back to 2014. Shannon Code, the founder, has been crafting the vision for Emblem 2.0 for over a decade, predating both Ethereum and smart contracts. Emblem Vault emerged as a pioneer in blockchain interconnectedness, setting the standard for NFT bridging.
Emblem Vault in Numbers
- #1 NFT interoperability protocol
- $160M trading volume
- $100M total value vaulted
- 100,000 vaults minted
- 22,000 unique owners
- 500 collections supported
- 100 smart contracts
- 17 protocols
- 3 blockchain deployments
Naturally Chain Hopping
Emblem's history spans a decade of innovation across multiple blockchains:
2014 — Shannon Code acquires Ribbit Rewards (RBR), laying the groundwork for what would become Emblem.
2016 — RBR is rebranded to Circuits of Value (COVALC) on Counterparty. Circuit Builder is launched, and Emblem Vault is officially announced.
2019 — COVALC migrates from Counterparty to Ethereum as COVAL (ERC-20), following the broader industry's shift toward Ethereum-based infrastructure.
2020 — Emblem Vault launches on Ethereum, enabling cross-chain NFT trading for the first time at scale.
2023 — The transition from Emblem 1.0 to 2.0 begins, migrating over 50,000 NFTs to the upgraded protocol.
2024 — Migration of COVAL to EMBLEM•VAULT•KEYS (Runes) on Bitcoin is announced, marking a return to Bitcoin after six years on Ethereum.
Why Runes? Why Bitcoin?
The decision to migrate to Bitcoin Runes is grounded in data and narrative:
- ~80% of Emblem's $150M trading volume comes from Counterparty, Ordinals, and Stamps assets
- ~85% of $100M TVL represents Bitcoin NFT assets
- COVALC originally launched on Counterparty (Bitcoin meta-protocol) in 2016
- Runes, launched April 2024 by Casey Rodarmor, is the preferred fungible token protocol on Bitcoin
- Bitcoin remains the largest cryptocurrency
The narrative of "returning home" after six years on Ethereum adds a fitting final touch. Emblem was born from Bitcoin's ecosystem, and now it returns to it with a decade of experience and infrastructure behind it.
Introducing the Expansion Campaign
The Expansion Campaign combines incentives, rewards, speculation, scale, tokens, community, innovation, and time into a comprehensive roadmap for Emblem's next chapter.
The campaign represents the culmination of years of building and positions Emblem Vault as the definitive cross-chain interoperability protocol. With the migration to Bitcoin Runes and the introduction of the KEYS token, a new era of interoperability is on the horizon.
